


Drunken Brawl

by nyagosstar



Series: Bitter 'verse [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyagosstar/pseuds/nyagosstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Ed needs space, a drink and a good fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drunken Brawl

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always go to my beta sainnis who has a like, five minute turn around time on these things. And who says nice things like 'that sentence isn't quite right, but I like it anyway.'

Stupid Roy and his stupid fucking face. Ed raised a lazy finger to signal for another drink. He was pretty sure that, at this point, if he had to raise anything else, he wouldn’t get served. And more alcohol seemed like a great idea.

Thank God he finally looked old enough not to have to argue about getting served. And though Ed felt like fighting, felt like a real, knock-down drag-out full-on fist-bloodied fight, he didn’t want to argue with the bartenders. They were the ones holding the alcohol and had the power to throw him out.

He still wasn’t allowed back into The Tankard for picking a fight with the bartender. It was a shitty bar, anyway.

The root of his problem, the root of all his problems these days was, of course, Roy. Roy fucking Mustang. Roy, who didn’t know how not to be a total asshole. Who took glee in sending Ed into fits of irrational rage. Roy, who seemed to be able to make Ed absolutely insane without lifting a finger, so when the time came for a real argument, it was just Ed overreacting instead of pointing out something that was a fundamental problem. Ed was too high strung, too easy to anger and clearly too fucking stupid to know that spending all their time screaming at each other was a fucking problem.

He raised his glass and was halfway through the burning liquid when someone knocked into him, cracking his teeth against the glass and sloshing the whiskey over the rim and down his shirt. Ed slammed the glass on the bar and whipped around. “What the fuck? Are you trying to break my teeth?”

Some guy, only a year or two older than Ed rolled his eyes and gestured Ed away with his bottle. “I barely touched you. It’s a bar, get over it.”

Ed swung around, jumped down off his stool and shoved the man before he thought the action through. “You shoved me, asshole.”

The guy grinned at his friends. “What the fuck are you planning on doing about it?”

In an act of pure humanitarianism, Ed threw the punch with his left hand. Bone cracked against bone and all of the anger, all of the frustration that Ed had been feeling all fucking day snapped with that sound. It was like he could breathe for the first time, like the sky had opened up and sun shone down from on high. His body felt loose and relaxed and yet thrummed with energy all at the same time.

The jackass stumbled back, looking surprised for a moment before darting in for his own punch. Though high on adrenaline, Ed’s reflexes were slowed by half a bottle of whiskey and he took the hit square on the jaw, his head snapping back with a pain that would be with him for days, he was sure. He ducked the next punch and replied with his own to the man’s face and chest, knocking him back and making his beer slosh out of the bottle and splash on his shoes.

The guy paused, his eyes darting from the mess of the beer to the bottle and back to Ed for just a second before he broke the neck of the bottle against the bar and stabbed it at Ed. Only the guy wasn’t trying to kill him and aimed for his arm. Unlucky for him, it was his right arm. Ed laughed in his face, yanked the remains of the bottle from his hand and threw it on the floor, relishing in the sound of the crash and the spray of glass that cascaded across the floor.

“That’s enough!” The bartender shoved his way between them, grabbing them by the fabric of their shirts and dragging them towards the door. “Don’t come back.” He pushed them into the street where Ed fully expected to continue the altercation with the added advantage of greater space and no one to stop them. Instead, the guy shrugged at Ed and took off down the street, his hands in his pockets.

“What the fuck?”

“Feel better?”

Ed turned, the world going a little spin-y at the edges, to find Roy, Roy fucking Mustang, leaning against the wall of the bar, his arms crossed over his chest and that smug fucking smile on his face. “What?”

“I asked if you felt better? Drank some, fought some, feel better?”

Ed shook his head, not sure if it was the alcohol that was making the discussion difficult or if it was just Roy. “What?”

Roy stepped away from the wall, all smooth, sleek lines. “Do you think you can come home now and not want to destroy our stuff?”

“I, he,” Ed paused and tried to think his way through the situation. “You didn’t send that guy in there.”

“Paid him, is more like.”

For a moment, Ed wanted desperately to be angry about the situation. Here was Roy trying to control him, manipulate him all over again. But it was hard when the world was pleasantly muted with whiskey and all of his anger had dissipated on the guy’s face. “You paid a guy ten cens to go in there and pick a fight?”

The street lamp near Roy flickered, casting him in stuttering shadows that suited him at the moment. “It was considerably more than ten cens, but worth all of it. You feel better? You seem better,” Roy purred in his ear as Ed neared.

Ed leaned in and nipped at Roy’s ear. “You bring the car?” At Roy’s hummed affirmative, he smiled. “D’you think if I fuck you in the car we’ll get caught for indecency?”

“I’m willing to risk it.”


End file.
